After leaving construction, student building new career

Yale fellowship part of plan to be professor

John Aragon, a Palomar College student, finishes packing Monday for the Yale Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, which encourages minority students who are under-represented in academia to pursue careers as scholars. Aragon wants to become an English professor.
— Howard Lipin / UNION-TRIBUNE

John Aragon, a Palomar College student, finishes packing Monday for the Yale Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, which encourages minority students who are under-represented in academia to pursue careers as scholars. Aragon wants to become an English professor.
— Howard Lipin / UNION-TRIBUNE

Aragon said studying literature has expanded his intellectual horizons, and he’s fascinated by how people use language. In a world with Facebook, what does “friend” really mean anymore? Introduce the word “homophobe” into an emotional conversation among college students, and “everyone freaks out.”

“We should be able to use words and know what they mean,” Aragon said. “That’s why I really like English. English professors are the keepers of knowledge, in a way.”

This spring, Aragon was vice president of Palomar’s Associated Student Government.

“The (student) senators love him and trust his opinions,” said Sherry Titus, director of Palomar’s Office of Student Affairs. “They miss him when he is not around. He has a great sense of humor and the perfected ability to remain calm in sometimes very chaotic and challenging times.”

Aragon said he’ll apply lessons learned in the construction business to his academic pursuits.

“You look at a set of plans, and that’s what the architect and construction manager want it to look like. At the end of the job, your building has to look like the picture,” he said.

Looking to his cousin in San Francisco, his sister at Yale and other models of achievement, Aragon said he has the blueprints he needs. “There’s definitely a clarity with just being older,” he said. “A clarity of purpose.”